Glenn Beck with Sen. Hatch: ‘Constitution is hanging by a thread’

By T. Jefferson
Updated 11/04/2008 | 12:51 PM EST

US Senator Orrin Hatch

GLENN: From Radio City in Midtown Manhattan, third most listened to show in all of America. Hello, you sick twisted freak. Welcome to the program. My name is Glenn Beck. Senator Orrin Hatch is with us today with a view from Washington on what this day actually means for America if things go as, you know, MSNBC is predicting. Hello, Senator, how are you, sir?

SENATOR HATCH: Well, nice to be with you, Glenn. I appreciate your program and I appreciate all that you are trying to do here in spreading the word.

GLENN: Thank you, sir. Tell me, what does this mean if there is a filibuster-proof Senate and Barack Obama is the President of the United States?

SENATOR HATCH: One of the most important things about our constitutional way of life is we have checks and balances. The Senate has always been a check on really outrageous legislation, and the filibuster rule which is Rule 22 in the Senate, that allows the minority to protect itself and to protect the country from really, really outrageous legislation like the card check bill. Now, the Democrats call the card check bill the employee free choice act. It’s anything but that. What that bill says, that if union organizers — and these are not little people.

GLENN: Right.

SENATOR HATCH: If they come to the homes of your employees and they get 50% of employees plus one to sign a union card, you are unionized without an election.

GLENN: Hang on just a second, it really — they can come to your employee’s home.

SENATOR HATCH: They can get you in bars, they can get you anywhere. They will generally go to homes. And these people are going to sign cards. Everywhere they have had the card check legislation enacted, the businesses have become 85% unionized. You know, even George McGovern is against that. To think that the Democrats will do away with a secret ballot election. And by the way, Glenn, that’s not the worst part of the bill. Either side can demand mediation. Within 90 days if you can’t get a collective bargaining agreement put together — and the unions will never allow you to do that. Why? Because at the end of those 90 days, you have to succumb to government mandated, government-run arbitration, where the government sets the wages, terms and conditions of employment for your business. I mean, my gosh, it’s —

GLENN: Senator, I don’t know what has happened to our country. I mean, we are swinging so far to the left. I mean, I played a piece of audio from Secretary of Agriculture Benson from the 1960s where he said people will — he said Kruschev told him that Americans are so naive, we’ll spoon socialism down their throat, you know, and over the years; before you know it, you’ll raise the red flag. And here we are. We’re at a point to where our country and our Constitution is slipping through our fingers.

SENATOR HATCH: Well, I hate to tell you that bill is not the worst — it’s the worst thing as far as I’m concerned, but there are a lot of bad things. If we don’t have that firewall of at least 41 solid Republican senators, then I think it’s over for our country in a lot of ways because we’re going to go straight to socialism and, of course, if you look — look, I like Barack Obama as a human being. He seems to be a decent, reasonable, nice, intelligent, good looking man who’s very charismatic. But if you look at what he’s been saying over the last year or so it’s all platitudes and generalities on so-called change. I mean, really when it comes — we’re in a time in our lives where national security and foreign policy are extremely, extremely important and nobody doubts that John McCain is head and shoulders above Barack Obama there. And then you —

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GLENN: Senator —

SENATOR HATCH: Go ahead. I’m sorry.

GLENN: No, I hate to interrupt. I want to go back before you move on. You are not a guy who is known as being a bomb thrower.

SENATOR HATCH: No, I’m concerned.

GLENN: Yeah, you are a guy who has always been, you’re an old school senator. You are the kind of guy that, you know, you get together afterwards and you say good things about each other and you fight hard, but when it’s over, it’s over. You just said on this program that in a lot of ways the country is over if we don’t have a filibuster capability in the Senate. What do you mean by that?

SENATOR HATCH: Let me give you an illustration. I had one Democrat, I said, are you with me on card check? And the Democrat said, "Oh, yeah, it’s a terrible, terrible bill." But then he said, "I’m voting for cloture." I said, come on. I said, that’s the whole vote. I said, if we can’t stop that with extended debate, then it isn’t going to be stopped. And once that comes through, the card check bill, I think it’s going to be very difficult to get America back because it would take 60 votes. We would never have 60 votes as a Republican party. It would take 60 votes to have the unions have to conform to the campaign laws like everybody else has to. We’ve never been able to do that.

In fact, Glenn, here’s something. As you know, I’ve been trying to raise money for Republican senators all over the country to try and prevent the loss of this firewall and I’ve had a few Republicans say, I’m mad at Republicans, too, because they should have done more, they should have done this. I said, wait a minute. I’ve been in the Senate for 32 years. There has not been one day where the fiscally conservative point of view has been in the majority, not one day in the Senate. Now, why is that? Because we always have four, five or six liberal Republicans who go with the almost all liberal Democrat. The closest was McCain when we had the last congress where we had 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. But even then by the time you took the liberals who would go with the Democrats, it was at best 50/50. So we really have never had the majority necessary to be able to cause the unions or even liberal Democrats to have to conform with the laws that everybody else has to conform with.

GLENN: Senator, do you believe — I mean, when I heard Barack Obama talk about the Constitution and I thought, we are at the point or we are very near the point where our Constitution is hanging by a thread.

SENATOR HATCH: You got that right. And I tell you what is really fearful to me besides — there are so many issues but I’ve mentioned card check. What’s fearful to me is the makeup of the United States Supreme Court. Obama has said that he’s going to appoint people who are more concerned about the poor and those who don’t have a lot of wealth. Well, that’s not what the Supreme Court should be doing. It should be concerned about the poor, the wealthy, everybody. It should be concerned about obeying the law and enforcing the laws of the Constitution.

GLENN: Justice is supposed to be blind.

SENATOR HATCH: What?

GLENN: Justice is supposed to be blind.

SENATOR HATCH: You got that right. Now he’s made it very clear that it isn’t going to be blind, that they’re going to sway the court in favor of what he considers to be the poor. The problem is the poor are constantly changing and millionaires are constantly changing. The greatest thing about this country is that you can be poor, raised poor and wind up a multimillionaire because of the opportunities that this country offers you.

Now, if you change the Supreme Court to where it isn’t obeying the law, that means the Supreme Court becomes the superlegislature. None of those justices are elected to those positions. They are appointed for life. And the Democrats want to make it a superlegislature that will pass legislation from the bench that they could never get through the elected representatives of the people in congress. And that’s what they are up to, and I’m telling you it’s a scary, scary thing.

GLENN: Let me play a piece of audio. This is another thing that frightens me. I want to play this. This is Charlie Rangel. Listen to the way he’s speaking about Barack Obama. Play this audio.

RANGEL: On Tuesday we’ll be able to say, who’s been able to bring to us one of the greatest Presidents we will ever see, Barack Obama. Who are we going to elect? Barack Obama. Who’s the next President? Barack Obama. Who is our hero? Barack Obama. Who is going to lead us out of poverty? Barack Obama. Who is going to save the United States of America? Barack Obama. Who is going to save the entire world? Barack Obama. And who do we love? Barack Obama. God bless.

GLENN: Stop. Senator, it is beyond, it is — this is so far beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. This is so easily turning — and I’m not saying that Barack Obama would do this, but I believe there are forces in this country that would like to do it. This is the benevolent dictator that could come to our country. At the drop of a hat somebody in this country does something stupid and we could be in fascism. Benevolent fascism the next day.

SENATOR HATCH: Well, I don’t think it will take us to fascism. I think it will take us to socialism and beyond. Let’s look at it. The national journal says that he’s the most liberal senator in the Senate. I can confirm that. Biden is the third most liberal. Hey, the fourth is Bernie Sanders, the avowed socialist. They are good people, I like them all, but don’t think they are not from the far left. They are. And let me tell you something. I’ve got to give Barack Obama credit and the people who have run his campaign. They have run an excellent campaign and, of course, it’s astronomical how much money they have raised. Three quarters of a billion dollars for Barack Obama in this race. And I might add he is continually condemning Wall Street. Are you kidding? Wall Street’s his biggest supporter. Wall Street has plundered the Democrats senatorial committee like you can’t believe. Those people have to be nuts. They are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. And not everybody in Wall Street, but I’m talking about the vast majority of money has come right from Wall Street and yet Obama acts like he is against Wall Street. Give me a break.

GLENN: But you know what, Senator, this country, from the top to the bottom, we’re now short-term thinkers. You know, Wall Street looks at it and says, "Oh, well, he will bail us out, he will help us here, he will help us do this." And it’s short-term thinker. Nobody is thinking about the next generation. You know, the words of Ronald Reagan where he said, "No generation in the history of Earth has ever tasted freedom, lost it, and then tasted it again." We are so close to losing our Constitution. We are so close to losing what we have, and people aren’t thinking. The next generation our children will look to us and say, "You sold my freedom for what?"

SENATOR HATCH: Well, let me tell you something. I believe the Constitution is hanging by a thread. I’ve been fighting the save it for all 32 years I’ve been in the Senate and I think anybody who looks at it knows I’ve been in almost every fight that’s been saving the Constitution. When I look at it, you have John McCain. Yes, he has some — he irritates people from time to time, but everybody knows he’s a hero. Everybody knows he’s to you. Everybody knows he wants to get spending under control. He is the only one who wants to get spending under control. He’s taken on his own side. He’s taken on the Democrats. Everybody knows that he’s head and shoulders above Obama on national security and foreign policy. Obama thinks we’ve got to be loved by the Europeans. I’d rather be respected by the Europeans and that’s what you are going to get with McCain. They may love Obama, because he wants to make us like the Europeans, like France. And I’ve got to tell you, who in Europe, in liberal socialist areas of Europe wouldn’t love Obama with what he’s standing for.

But it’s more than that. If you want more and more taxes, if you want the federal government to control more and more of your lives, he’s going to spend $1 trillion. He’s already talking about a trillion more dollars in spending. He doesn’t understand the energy needs of our society. He isn’t for using coal until we get energy self-sufficient. Heck, coal provides for — and clean burn coal provides for 50% of our electricity in this country. We can’t ignore that, but he does. And he doesn’t understand energy, one of the biggest issues in our country. I could go through the whole thing, and you are talking to a senator who’s put the tax credits in for wind, solar, geothermal, you know, and the hybrid cars and plug-in hybrid cars. I’m telling you, I’m right at the forefront of that. But that’s all well and good and we ought to do everything in our power to go that way, but he doesn’t seem to understand that until we get there, this country’s running on oil and on coal.

GLENN: How do we stop — I mean, Al Gore is going to, within a week we will be hearing the celebrations from Al Gore and the greenies.

SENATOR HATCH: I tell you, it sounds good but it makes us uncompetitive to the rest of the world. Now, I think we should be bigger, I think we should do everything we can against greenhouse gases but I think we’ve got to approach it in an intelligent, you know, logical way. We don’t just make the United States uncompetitive with the rest of the world. You know, I’ve got to tell you my biggest worries are national security foreign policy worries, the Supreme Court, taxation, and, of course, the move towards having the federal government control all of the aspects of our lives. These are all things that I think the Obama people are for. And they are sincerely for it. They actually believe that they are on the right track. The thing that’s made this country great is that we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We have competition. We have free trade. He’s against free trade, and a lot of that is dictated by the unions.

Now, why? The unions have admitted that they have put a billion dollars into local, state and federal elections over the last two years. And I think it’s more than that. Now, of that billion dollars, about $950 million of it is not reported anywhere in the campaign rules because we’ve never had the 60 votes to make them conform to the rules like everybody else has to. And they use that $950 million to get out the vote for Democrats. Republicans have nothing to compare with that. We have to win on logic and good programs and we’re finding that more and more of our young people are looking for free handouts and the easy way of life and because all they get are platitudes and generalities from the Democrats who are moving us towards, you know, towards what by any measure is a measure of socialism.

GLENN: Senator, before we let you go, and I know you are busy and I appreciate your time. I have heard from several people that — and I’m not talking about hope. There’s always hope and there’s always — because I believe in the American people and I know you do, too.

SENATOR HATCH: I do. I do.

GLENN: So listen carefully to the question because I’m not talking about the general hope of, I believe in the people of America. But people keep telling me, oh, we’ve faced bad times before, we have faced — and what I keep saying to them is, not like this. There is the perfect storm. We are so weak and vulnerable on so many big issues that this thing could slip through our fingers. This is a critical time in our country. It’s not something that we’re like, "Oh, well, four years, it will be bad and then we’ll be back." True or false?

SENATOR HATCH: Well, you are right about that. And let me just say I would recommend to everybody, even though it’s election day, this isn’t going to be over on election day because there are some races that may still have to continue. That everybody ought to go to NRSC. That’s National Republican Senatorial Committee. NRSC.org and donate whatever they can. Everybody listening today, from 10 bucks to 1,000 bucks, whatever you can give. Because this is a battle for control of the Senate and we’re going to lose races in the Republican Senate. What we cannot lose is that firewall that protects this country from irresponsible legislation and irresponsible work within the bureaucracy that is bound to come if Obama’s elected President.

Now, I’m not so sure he is. He personally believe that John McCain is the Truman and Barack of this election. I really believe when people go to the polls they are going to say, I’ve got to go with a guy I know, I can’t go with somebody who I don’t know.

GLENN: I have to tell you, Senator, I hold out hope as well for that. Senator, I’ve got to run but thank you very much, sir, and we’ll talk again.